We Are All Dorothy Cooper

The ongoing shenanigans in the states regarding people's right to vote is going to be an ongoing obsession of this particular pop-stand. Steve Benen down at Washington Monthlypicked up one woman's horror story from Tennessee, which isn't getting anywhere near enough attention.

Usually, this story is framed by coverage of political battles within the legislature — who's up and who's down, and how many votes do they have. What gets lost is the level of detail present in this story as to what occurs when the laws are finally enacted. Somebody who's been voting for 70 years loses their suffrage because some clerk way, way down in the state bureaucracy either doesn't understand the law, or chooses not to do so. Answer without thinking: What's your opinion of your local DMV? (Really, young lady, such language.) Now realize that those are the people who will determine whether you get to vote.

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It's bad enough that these are laws ostensibly passed to deal with a problem that virtually doesn't exist. (The actual problem they're meant to address — too many students, elderly, and brown people voting for Republicans to win elections any more — is, of course, very real.) But to submit citizens to the whimsical cruelty of a government bureaucracy just to be allowed to participate in determining who will be in charge of that government is something that the East Germans would have done for laughs. I'm sure the Tea Party people will be on this case in a second.